User experience is the MOST important factor for Google because this ensures people will keep using their search engine as opposed to any of their competitors.

A2 Hosting have a number of unique features in place to ensure that sites load FAST even on a shared hosting plan.

Based on my own personal testing (using tools such as Pingdom), websites hosted on the A2 Hosting servers load faster than any other major hosting company which offers plans that are affordable for most small business owners.

2. They allow you to optimise your site based on where most of your visitors are coming from

As a general rule, the shorter the physical distance between your visitor and the server hosting your website, the quicker it will load.

A2 Hosting allow you to host your website in one of three physical locations: Michigan in the US (where the company is based), Amsterdam and Singapore.

A CDN automatically replicates your website files across many servers spread around the world and then delivers them to users based on where they are. It also helps manage traffic spikes and offers many other additional security benefits.

Here is a 90 second video providing a brief explanation of how the CDN offered by A2 Hosting works.

3. They offer both an up-time and any time refund guarantees

A2 Hosting guarantee that your website will not be down for more than 0.01% of the time every month (scheduled maintenance excluded) even on the lowest shared hosting plan.

If they fail to meet this guarantee, they will provide you with credit towards your hosting plan.

Most other hosting companies will not offer any refunds after 60-90 days.

Only a company which is confident of delivering quality service to its customers can afford financially to offer such a generous money back guarantee.

4. They don’t overload their shared servers

The cheapest hosting product (and the one most small business owners start with) is shared hosting.

With shared hosting, you share your server with other websites and the server resources are allocated based on the demand for processing power by each website.

Many hosting companies put waaaay too many websites on each server in their shared hosting plan because it allows them to make more money from their existing hardware.

A2 Hosting on the other hand, makes sure that they don’t put more websites on the same shared server once it starts affecting the speed & performance of other websites on it.

They do charge slightly more as a result for their shared plan than those hosting companies who ‘pile high’ their servers with websites, but based on my own personal experience, this small premium is well worth it.

5. They offer 24/7 support by phone

Most big hosting companies offer 24/7 support (you should stay away from any hosting company that doesn’t!).

However, some of them only offer support via email, online chat and a ticketing system (Dreamhost being a prime example).

Others offer phone support but you need to dial an overseas number in order to access it.

A2 Hosting offer 24/7 tech support as well as a billing hotline via local phone numbers in most countries (so you don’t need to dial a US number if you’re outside the US or Canada).

6. They will transfer your website from your existing host for FREE!

Many people tend to stay put with their current host simply because they think moving their website across will be just too much work and take too much of their time.

Some even think they will need to hire experts and pay someone to migrate their websites for them.

Well, A2 Hosting are very well aware of that and as a result, offer to move your website for you from your current host across to them free of charge!

This is not just because A2 Hosting are keen to provide good customer service (which they are) but also because it makes good business sense for them.

The easier they make it for people to start using their hosting services, the more customers they will attract.

It’s not rocket science really 😉

7. They run the latest version of PHP & provide free SSL certificates to all websites hosted with them

PHP 7.2 which means your website can load up to 100% faster than with a host that uses an older version of PHP.

Free SSL certificates to all your websites. The installation, configuration and renewal of these certificates is done automatically by A2 Hosting without you having to do anything yourself. An SSL certificate will allow your website to run on HTTPS instead of HTTP. To understand what that means and more importantly, why you must have that, read my explanation here.

These are the main reasons why I recommend A2 Hosting for small business owners and why I use them myself in my own business.

And I’m not alone!

Just look at how quickly the number of websites who choose A2 Hosting has grown in recent years:

Source: BuiltWith (The world’s leading provider of technology profiling and business intelligence for the web).

Regulatory Affiliate Disclosure:

This post contains affiliate links. If you sign up to A2 Hosting through any of the links on this page, I will be paid a commission for that.

This commission does not affect in any way the price you pay or the quality of service you’ll receive.